UK coronavirus crisis 'to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised'
Source: The Guardian
The coronavirus epidemic in the UK will last until next spring and could lead to 7.9 million people being hospitalised, a secret Public Health England (PHE) briefing for senior NHS officials reveals.
The document, seen by the Guardian, is the first time health chiefs tackling the virus have admitted that they expect it to circulate for another 12 months and lead to huge extra strain on an already overstretched NHS.
It also suggests that health chiefs are braced for as many as 80% of Britons becoming infected with the coronavirus over that time.
Prof Chris Whitty, the governments chief medical adviser, has previously described that figure as the worst-case scenario and suggested that the real number would turn out to be less than that. However, the briefing makes clear that four in five of the population are expected to contract the virus.
The document says that: As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.
The briefing sets out the latest official thinking about how severely the infection could affect both the publics health and that of personnel in critical services such as the NHS, police, the fire brigade and transport.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)USA #1 in healthcare? #1 when you need it most?
yaesu
(8,020 posts)many were hospitalized in China so far but those numbers would definitely crush our healthcare system.
bucolic_frolic
(43,115 posts)2020 world population 7.7 billion.
So it's going to be big numbers
durablend
(7,459 posts)That's just not realistic to expect people are going to have money to pay their bills without an income for that long a time without massive stimulus from the government (haha, right)
athenasatanjesus
(859 posts)Stryst
(714 posts)Depends on how difficult it is to make, what facilities are capable of making it, and how jacked the transportation networks are at that point. If enough skilled workers are already sick, then that slows the process.
RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)meadowlander
(4,393 posts)Like shit?
Ok then.
Native
(5,939 posts)they are afraid of mass panic, naturally. Said there was a lot she couldn't tell me right now. This would seem to corroborate what she said. I mean, if it's happening there, it's happening here.